Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#211

Post by nissimk » Fri, Jun 16, 2017, 2:19 PM UTC

opportune wrote: post #70

illumin8 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: I work for AWS, but my opinions are my own. I don't think you have much to worry about if you're a WF employee. Amazon actually treats their employees very well. In my experience here, I've never seen any of the things the NY times article talked about, either on my team or any other team I've interacted with. People have a healthy work/life balance (40-50 hours a week), get paid very well (definitely abo…

Yes, but fulfillment center employees are likely much more comparable to whole foods employees than software developers, in terms of education, job responsibilities, ease of replacement, etc. So that's probably who we should be looking at anyway

There's one key difference that the retail employees are interacting with customers whereas the distribution center employees are hidden away in the factory. Not sure how important this difference will be, but it could definitely influence the company's behavior.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#212

Post by j2bax » Fri, Jun 16, 2017, 2:20 PM UTC

loudin wrote: post #91

bspn wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Zappos is a probably a pretty good proxy. They too had a very different culture to Amazon at the time of acquisition, but I believe it has largely remained intact many years post-acquisition. Amazon as a company has many flaws in its culture (if we are to believe the reports), but they seem to do acquisitions pretty well and know when to leave things alone and let them do their thing.

I think this is a different beast. I personally loved shopping at Whole Foods because the food is high quality and their employees are treated well. These tenets are totally incompatible with Amazon's culture. Sure, now they say they will run it independently, but if Amazon were to struggle with Whole Foods, the first thing they do will be to lower labor costs and food costs. Unions to protect workers are now more im…

Amazon is a tech and logistics company. I doubt very much that their strategy is "buy random company, lower pay of employees, profit". This was a very strategic move for them and I am sure they intend to use their tech and distribution platform to increase the profit, rather than slice and dice the store experience and quality at the local level. This is what differentiated WF from many other grocery stores that I'm sure Amazon could have bid on, why would they want to ruin the one thing it had going for it?

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#213

Post by MiddleEndian » Fri, Jun 16, 2017, 2:20 PM UTC

Accacin wrote: post #74

illumin8 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: I work for AWS, but my opinions are my own. I don't think you have much to worry about if you're a WF employee. Amazon actually treats their employees very well. In my experience here, I've never seen any of the things the NY times article talked about, either on my team or any other team I've interacted with. People have a healthy work/life balance (40-50 hours a week), get paid very well (definitely abo…

> People have a healthy work/life balance (40-50 hours a week) 40-50 hours of work a week isn't healthy.

Agreed, although I imagine it's probably the norm unfortunately.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#214

Post by emodendroket » Fri, Jun 16, 2017, 2:20 PM UTC

tedmiston wrote: post #120

emodendroket wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I felt the opposite way; the recipes I got when I tried Blue Apron were more trouble than I really wanted to bother with on a weeknight.

Yeah, I can relate. I probably cook 3 meal kits every 2 weeks when I'm doing them which is on/off, and I feel like it is a time commitment (especially cleanup). So, I could commit 30-45 minutes and get a Blue Apron level meal that's usually ~5/10 experience or commit 15 more minutes to get something really nice one that's ~9/10.

The thing that killed me was I needed way more pots than I wanted to use; I usually try to go for one- or two-pot meals.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#215

Post by alphonsegaston » Fri, Jun 16, 2017, 2:20 PM UTC

TallGuyShort wrote: post #179

phreeza wrote: post #21

Somewhat off topic, but I have had a weird thought circulating in my head (triggered by reading Red Plenty) that I wanted to put out there: What is the relationship between a centrally planned economy as for example Gosplan was trying to run in the USSR, and the presence of these huge market-like but centralized entities like Amazon and Wal-Mart inside a free-market economy? This becomes particularly interesting beca…

Amazon doesn't shoot you when you protest it.

They used neo-nazis at a fullfilment center in Germany to keep immigrant laborers in line, so...

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/amazon-used-...

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#216

Post by raldi » Fri, Jun 16, 2017, 2:21 PM UTC

AndrewDucker wrote: post #23

https://twitter.com/dkberman/status/875701677504024576 "Amazon did not just buy Whole Foods grocery stores. It bought 431 upper-income, prime-location distribution nodes for everything it does."

It's like bootstrapping a fleet of Apple Stores all at once.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#217

Post by clutchdude » Fri, Jun 16, 2017, 2:21 PM UTC

bspn wrote: post #37

_7siz wrote: post #10

Oof. I wonder what this means for Whole Foods culture and employees. If you don't know, John Mackey, the CEO / founder, is a major believer in conscious capitalism and of empowering his employees. Whole Food employees get paid pretty darn well with some crazy good benefits for their industry and line-of-work (UNION FREE most of the time too!). WF banks on them being true believers and motivators of the cause - includ…

I think Zappos is a probably a pretty good proxy. They too had a very different culture to Amazon at the time of acquisition, but I believe it has largely remained intact many years post-acquisition. Amazon as a company has many flaws in its culture (if we are to believe the reports), but they seem to do acquisitions pretty well and know when to leave things alone and let them do their thing.

There's also Woot.com - a company who's culture was a strange counterpoint.

Amazon thought they understood it, messed it all around and now it's a sad parody of the former site.

https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/2014/july/...

That particular bit about Bezos and the octopus sells it - You'll be fine if Amazon "gets" your company and it's culture. If not, well...

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#218

Post by cercatrova » Fri, Jun 16, 2017, 2:21 PM UTC

tuna-piano wrote: post #92

I'm confused. Amazon is known to work backward from an imagined future press release, and then do the actions necessary to make that press release. How does Amazon see the future in this case? -Amazon already has PrimeNow and Amazon Fresh, which offer a great grocery delivery service. For those who have tried these services, it's easy to see how addicting they are vs going to a physical store. -I can't see Amazon usi…

Reposting my other comment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA2-iMz479o

I watched this video a while ago about what Amazon Go is a precursor for. In summary, if AWS is renting out server infrastructure for people, then you can imagine that Amazon can make the infrastructure to lease out Amazon Go to other stores. They first integrate it with Whole Foods, then as customers expect no more checkout areas, they will only go to Whole Foods because it's faster and maybe cheaper. Then because customers want it everywhere, Amazon could force other stores like Walmart and Target to integrate Amazon Go infrastructure to their stores, without Amazon directly competing with these stores, and make a ton of money leasing it out without spending money on building whole new stores. Of course, the acquisition could also be like nodes for warehousing and delivery, but both avenues are not mutually exclusive.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#219

Post by baccredited » Fri, Jun 16, 2017, 2:21 PM UTC

dawhizkid wrote: post #60

This is not good for Instacart. My understanding is WF was their biggest partner and source of revenue. No way amazon will use them.

Challenge often becomes an opportunity. Instacart recently landed Publix who has MUCH higher market share in the markets they serve.

Disclaimer: I'm an Instacart investor.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#220

Post by mbell » Fri, Jun 16, 2017, 2:21 PM UTC

dgudkov wrote: post #101

ckastner wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$13.7B / 431 = $31.79m per store. I have zero experience with real estate prices for retail outlets, but it feels as if that's a bit on the high end?

It's not just per store, it should also include all the logistics infrastructure -- warehouses, truck fleet, etc.

Last I knew (a few years ago) whole foods outsourced most of their logistics. They do have distribution centers but don't own the trucks nor related tech. In general this is a good thing, you don't want to run/own trucks unless you really have to, it's a very thin margin game that is easy to lose your shirt playing.